Wash Your Hands

Northern Lightshow

It’s been quite a while Tumblr, wow. Not so much has happened since the last time I posted here, however. I’m not quite sure when that was, but it doesn’t matter too much. All I know is that I’ve been having fun. I started writing a novel, and it’s going quite well. However, I felt like getting some of it out there a while, so I’m going to enter a writing contest. Since the novel isn’t anywhere near done, and it’d be too long to enter, I decided to write a short story version of my whole book, and I’m calling the short story Northern Lightshow. I’m going to send it into Writer’s Digest, who knowswhat’ll happen. Call me desperate for money, because you’re probably right. Here’s the intro, it’ll give you a good idea of what’s going on. Sort of.

Northern Lightshow
Based on a working manuscript
by Christopher Shearer

Introduction

The summer was busy, to say the least. An exploration of mind and body. For the first time in her life, Lily Anderson felt as though she was finally living. She had never let herself open to things such as love and psychedelics, but that’s not to say that she didn’t think about them from time to time. Jude opened her eyes to everything this troubled world had to offer. Leaving high school is tricky, but for these two, their departure was quickly forgotten amongst the kisses, the inebriation, and the beaches of Aurora. Though it had been June that they spent that week in that marvelous city, they couldn’t forget the significance it had for them. It would be the place where they felt at home, where a pilgrimage sought could be satisfied along its shores.

As the summer went on, Lily began to feel strange. Off color. Bland. And more specifically, things that in reality were familiar to her seemed foreign and looming. However, as she would spend a couple hours in this strange funk, it would mysteriously vanish along with the summer breeze. Although a cause for concern, Lily shook it off as a byproduct of the introspective explorations that she had been participating in. 

The rest of the summer was not as eventful as the beginning, as the week spent in Aurora. The majestic city, adorned with brilliant lights and colorful population, created the picture perfect backdrop for love to plant its fallible seed in these two hearts. However wonderful it may be, there is nothing that will change the secret that the young boy has been hiding from Lily since the beginning of summer. Not something trivial by any stretch, but something that would prove to change the course of these two lives completely.

That’s pretty much the sum of it. There’s a lot more to it, there’s a lot of details that are in the actual manuscript that I didn’t have time to put into this. I hope you like it, and cross your fingers that I win! :)